User's Manual

Horizon Compact Plus Release 1.0.1 Wireless Ethernet Product User Manual – Volume 2
12.0 Authentication
This feature is only necessary if you wish to restrict forwarding the user payload from a Horizon
Compact Plus unit to a specific peer or to a group of Horizon Compact Plus units. Authentication is
generally used as a security measure. It is not recommended to enable Authentication prior to
alignment of the radios.
Authentication restricts a Horizon Compact Plus unit from forwarding the user payload to other Horizon
Compact Plus units unless the other units match an authentication string. There are three types of
authentication:
1. No Authentication
2. Unique Authentication
3. Group Authentication
A new Horizon Compact Plus system inline with the signal cannot authenticate and receive data if
another Horizon Compact Plus system is already authenticated. The system authenticates its peer(s) at
an interval of approximately five seconds.
The Horizon Compact Plus system does not accept data from other manufacturers’ systems.
12.1 No Authentication
No Authentication is the default mode of operation for Horizon Compact. The Horizon Compact Plus
does not attempt to create a dialogue or establish authentication between Horizon Compact Plus nodes.
For No Authentication Mode, setting the failure condition has no effect since there is no dialogue or
authentication between Horizon Compact Plus systems. Any other Horizon Compact Plus node
transmitting on exactly the same frequency can send Ethernet data to the corresponding Horizon
Compact Plus node. The Horizon Compact Plus only accepts data from other Horizon Compact Plus
nodes that:
a. are transmitting on the same frequency;
b. are properly aligned in polarity; and
c. have adequate signal strength.
The Horizon Compact Plus system does not accept data from any other manufacturers’ products.
12.2 Unique Authentication
Unique authentication establishes a dialogue between two Horizon Compact Plus nodes. Unique
authentication is used in a point-to-point configuration where two Horizon Compact Plus systems
communicate only with each other and not any additional Horizon Compact Plus systems. Once Unique
Authentication is set, the Horizon Compact Plus only accepts Ethernet data from its authenticated peer.
It ignores all other sources of traffic arriving over the airwaves. Each node is programmed with its peer’s
identification number. Use CLI command get hw inventory. The Unit Serial Number is the identification
number to be used. The identification number corresponds to the Unit Serial Number of the peer node.
For example, endpoint A has a Unit Serial Number ‘1234’ and endpoint B has Unit Serial Number
‘5678’. The peer identifier for endpoint B is ‘1234’ (serial number of its peer) and the peer identifier for
endpoint A is ‘5678’ (serial number of its peer).
When you select Unique Authentication, you must set the authentication failure action.
12.3 Group Authentication
Group authentication is used when it is desireable to use the same authentication key over multiple
nodes in a network. This allows the authentication key management to be done at the network level
rather than at the link level.